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Highlights from Malawi’s 2014 Malaria Information Survey

Two major forms of malaria data collection help inform national malaria control programs and their supporters about progress and help focus continued resources and interventions. Routine national health information tells us about program implementation on a regular basis. National surveys give us a point-in-time picture of coverage. For the latter, Malawi has been fortunate in recent times to have conducted Malaria Information Surveys every two years.

Malawi continues to have endemic malaria as documented by the MAP project in the attached graphic. While some of its neighbors in southern Africa are moving toward elimination, Malawi still experiences prevalence (as measured by rapid diagnostic test) in children below five years of age of 43%, 28% and 33% in 2010, 2012 and 2014 respectively.

In the chart below we can see that malaria preventive measures have varied in coverage over the three survey periods and may be said to be on a very slightly upward trend. The Roll Back Malaria target of 80% coverage by 2010 and the US President’s Malaria Initiative target of 85% are still illusive.

In fact, simply having an ITN in the home is no guarantee that people will use it. Overall in 2014 72% of people living in a house with a net slept under one the night before the survey. The rate of use was better for children below five years of age (87%) and pregnant women (85%), but a gap remains.

Overall coverage for two doses of sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) for intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) remains low. Now that WHO is recommending IPTp with SP during each antenatal care visit after 13 weeks, we are aiming for 3, 4 or more doses. In 2014 89% pregnant women in Malawi received one dose, 63% received two and 12% received three.

Malaria treatment for febrile children was the indicator with the best performance (not counting the fact that treatment was not always preceded by a diagnostic test). Most (93%) of children took an artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) drug, and 74% took it within a day of fever onset.

The 2014 MIS provides more detailed breakdown by region and socio-economic group, which should be helpful for planning. The major take home message though is that five years after the RBM target dates, many countries, Malawi included, have not been able to scale up and sustain the high intervention coverage needed to bring down mortality and guide us on the pathway to malaria elimination.

As the 2015 Millennium Development Goals are being replaced with a broader development agenda, we hope that malaria will not become a neglected tropical disease again. Actually using data from the MIS to take timely decisions by national programs and donors is essential to keep us on the path.